View from the 'Loo: Using AI to advance quantum research. A Q&A with University of Waterloo professor Roger Melko – Communitech News

When Roger Melko isn't angling in northern Ontario lakes, he's angling to make Waterloo Region the leader in a remarkable new realm of technology -- quantum machine learning. Melko, a cross-appointed physicist at the University of Waterloo and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and an affiliate at the Institute for Quantum Computing, is pioneering the transfer of algorithms designed to solve problems in the field of artificial intelligence -- machine learning -- to generate breakthroughs in the field of quantum many-body physics. His work uses computer simulations to advance the understanding of strongly interacting condensed-matter systems. Canadian researchers affiliated with the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research -- CIFAR-- were responsible for breakthroughs that turned machine learning into the current hot button of tech. Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon and, it seems, every other large and small player in tech are stampeding into the space.